CHAP. LI.] THE ETATS GENERAUX. 295 with a ludicrous inconsistency, against ecclesiastical property being subjected to taxation! Brienne now found it impossible to resist the popular voice. The Etats généraux were summoned for May 1st, 1789; and, meanwhile, the establishment of the Cour plénière was suspended. Brienne, after some steps which very much resembled a national bankruptcy, found himself compelled to resign, and Louis had no alternative but to recall Necker. Brienne's retirement was soon after followed by that of Lamoignon. Serious riots occurred on both occasions, the latter being attended almost with a massacre. He re With the return of Necker financial prospects revived. His second Ministry closes the ancient régime. By engaging his personal fortune and other methods, he contrived to tide the nation over the few months which preceded the Revolution. The Parliament was now re-established for the second time during this reign. But it lost its popularity by enregistering the Royal Declaration that the Etats généraux should be convoked according to the form observed in 1614; which implied that their votes should be taken by orders and not per capita. Necker, however, though a good financier, was a mediocre statesman. assembled the Notables to decide on the composition of the Tiers état, or Commons. That Assembly adhered to ancient forms as to the number to be summoned, but sanctioned a democratic constitution of the Commons. Necker nevertheless persuaded the King to summon at least 1,000 persons, of whom the Tiers état was to consist of as many as the other two orders united, or half the whole Assembly. This concession, which had been demanded by most of the municipalities, would, as Necker pretended, be unimportant, if the States were to vote by orders, according to ancient custom; yet in a Report to the King previously to the Royal Declaration of December 27th, 1788, he appears already to have anticipated their voluntary union in certain cases. The Etats généraux, elected amid great excitement, were opened by the King, May 5th, 1789. The Assembly consisted, in all, of 1,145 members, of whom more than one-half belonged to the Tiers état. The first business was to verify the returns. For this purpose the Commons invited the other two orders to the great hall in which they sat; but as this proceeding would also have implied the mode of voting, that is en masse, the nobles and clergy declined the proposal, although the latter order consented to a conference. The Commons refused to proceed to business, and nothing was done for several weeks; till, on the motion of 296 THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. [CHAP. LI. the Abbé Sieyes,' deputy of the Tiers état of Paris, a last invitation was sent to the clergy and nobles (June 10th), and on their failing to appear, the Commons proceeded to business. After the verification of powers, Sieyès, in spite of the opposition of Mirabeau, moved and carried that the Etats should assume the title of the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. The Revolution had begun! Sieyes had previously traced the plan of operations, and laid down the programme of the Revolution, in his cele brated pamphlet, entitled, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers Etat? CHAP. LII.] NATURE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 297 THE CHAPTER LII. `HE celebrated phrase of Louis XIV., "I am the State," proclaimed the consummation of despotism. He asserted, and it was true, that the people, as a body politic, had been annulled by the Crown. Before a century had elapsed the maxim was reversed. The head of Louis's second successor fell upon the scaffold, and the revolutionary disciples of Rousseau established the principle that the real sovereign is the people itself. Hence it would appear that, for all practical purposes, the causes of the French Revolution may be sought between the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XVI.; or, in other words, that the inquiry may be limited to the nature of the institutions left by the former Monarch, and the causes which gradually led the people to desire their overthrow under the latter. Even within these limits the extent of the subject might demand a volume rather than a chapter. We can pretend only to indicate its principal heads, leaving the historical student to fill up the outline from his own researches and reflections. It would be a great mistake to consider the French Revolution merely as a political one. It was likewise a social revolution of the most extensive kind. Hence its peculiar character and its most abiding results. Many nations have experienced as sudden and violent a change in their political institutions; few or none have undergone, in a similar period of time, so complete an alteration in their habits and manners. One of the most striking defects in the French social system under the old régime was the anomalous position of the nobility. The vast power of the old nobles in the early days of the French Monarchy caused the Crown to regard them as rivals, and to court against them the aid of the people. This traditional policy even survived the occasion of it, and down to the very eve of the Revolution, Louis XVI. continued to regard the aristocracy as his most dangerous enemies.1 Louis XI. and his successors had Burke's observation to this effect is quoted with approbation by M. Tocqueville, Hist. de l'Ancien Régime, p. 218. 298 STATE OF THE FRENCH NOBLES. [CHAP. LII. begun to undermine their power, which was terribly shaken by the wars of the League, and finally overthrown by Richelieu. One of the most successful measures adopted by the Cardinal Minister for that purpose was, to entice the nobles to reside in Paris by the attractions of that capital, and thus to destroy their influence in their own provinces; a policy which was continued by Louis XIV. and his successors. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the abandonment of their estates for a town life had become almost general among the nobles; few remained in the provinces who had the means of living with becoming splendour in the capital. The dissipation and extravagance in which they thus became involved leading to their gradual impoverishment, they were compelled to sell their lands bit by bit; so that in the reign of Louis XVI. it was computed that five-eighths of all the land in France was in the hands of roturiers,1 and for the most part of very small proprietors. Arthur Young, who travelled in France at the outbreak of the Revolution, had often seen a property of ten rods with only a single fruit tree upon it. As the policy of Richelieu depressed the nobles, so it tended to enrich and elevate the Tiers état, or commons. The inhabitants of towns, the commercial and manufacturing classes, made rapid progress. The advance of the French people in wealth and civilization after Richelieu's Ministry is depicted in glowing colours by an author who has made that epoch his peculiar study. The high roads of the kingdom, previously infested by brigands, became safe channels for the operations of trade and industry. Abundance everywhere prevailed; the fields were covered with rich crops, the towns were animated with commerce and embellished by the arts. The impulse once given went on increasing. Hence the Tiers état which attended the States-General of 1789 bore but little resemblance to their predecessors a century or two before. Wealth had given them weight and importance; education had sharpened their intelligence, opened their eyes to the Granier de Cassagnac, Hist. des causes de la Révolution Française, t. i. p. 151. This computation seems much too high, but authorities on the subject differ very much. According to Arthur Young, only one-third of the land was in the hands of small proprietors; while Leonce de Lavergne (quoted by M. Taine, Ancien Régime, p. 18) says that two-fifths were held by the Tiers état and peasantry, the rest, except common lands, by the nobles, clergy, and Crown. The effects of the Revolution seem to have been to leave the peasantry much where they were, but vastly to increase the landed possessions of the Tiers état, at the expense, of course, of the higher classes (See Von Sybel, Gesch. der Revolutions-zeit, vol. i. p. 23 sq. Eng. Trans.). This result might have been expected from the many voluntary and compulsory sales during the Revolution, and especially of the Church lands. 2 Jay, Hist. du Ministère du Cardinal Richelieu, t. ii. p. 226 sqq. CHAP. LII.] RICHELIEU'S POLICY. 299 political and social abuses which prevailed, and inspired them with the desire of obtaining that influence and consideration in the State to which their altered condition justly entitled them. But this glowing picture must be estimated only by comparison; and the peasantry at least, as we shall presently see, instead of sharing in this advance, had terribly retrograded. Richelieu's policy was ultimately followed by effects which he had neither foreseen nor intended. It contributed, in short, to make the Revolution possible. Hence the different views which have been taken by French political writers of Richelieu's character. The advocates of a constitutional monarchy, regarding a substantial aristocracy as the only sure support of a solid liberty, utterly condemn the policy of Richelieu. Montesquieu, in his Pensées, calls him one of the worst citizens that France had ever seen; and the same view is adopted by Madame de Stäel, in her Considérations sur la Révolution Française. Ultra-democratic writers, on the contrary, look upon the great Cardinal Minister as a deliverer from aristocratic tyranny, in fact, as the founder of the French nation. In their view, a royal despotism is more endurable, and more favourable to the progress of civilization, than the despotism of an aristocracy, because it is less extensively felt, and because it is more amenable to the control of public opinion, and of such protective institutions, however imperfect, as France possessed, for instance, in her Parliaments. That Louis XI. was an unfeeling tyrant, that Richelieu, as appears from his Testament Politique, in his heart contemned the people, is disregarded by such writers. They look only to the results, and contend, not without some show of reason, that such rulers are unjustly charged with introducing a despotism, which had, in fact, existed long before. They even acknowledge a sentiment of gratitude towards them, as the founders of the French nationality, and in this sense the authors of the Revolution. In this reasoning we behold that apparently paradoxical, but really natural alliance between extreme democracy and absolutism, which seems so suitable to the genius of the French, and which manifested itself even during the wildest excesses of the Revolution; when royal tyranny was replaced by that of a virtual dictatorship. But whilst in the eighteenth century the wealth and the political influence of the French nobility were almost annihilated, a titular aristocracy still remained, possessing many of the peculiar and invidious privileges of the feudal times. Although the nobles were 1 See Bailleul, Examen crit. de l'ouvrage de Madame de Stäel, t. i. p. 46. |